I have never been to Kentucky before. I’m sure there is a lot to see and do there. But this past week, rather than visiting Kentucky, Kentucky visited me. Sunday, June 4th, our first official group arrived. They unpacked their things and introduced themselves.
“We are from Lexington, Kentucky.”
That introduction began a week of intimate friendship. We served alongside each other at homeless shelters, food banks, and geriatric centers. We walked an extra seven blocks in drizzling rain to get to a ministry site one morning. We jammed to music while navigating. We ate ice cream and dangled our feet off a dock. We talked. And talked. And talked. ..about life, family, friends, favorite vacation spots, music, perspectives, and who gets to sit in the front seat of the 15 passenger van (the students were always debating about who got to sit up front…the struggle is real).
Being Kiersten and I’s first week, we had little expectation. Our excitement on day one continued throughout the week because of our group’s willingness and joy to serve. As part of our job, we are asked to invest ourselves in each of our groups. This requires patience, grace, and enthusiasm. It was truly a beautiful thing to experience a week that felt less like doing a job and more like doing outreach with family.
Here are a few qualities to describe this group: talkative, funny, always ready to play a game, joyful, unified, peaceable, attentive, and willing. I was challenged by this group to always have praise on my lips and to rejoice through singing. Worship can happen anywhere and can take on many forms. They reminded me of that!
[Me, Jessie, & Kiersten at Washington Monument! Jessie was one of our church group’s interns]
[serving at a food bank]
[woke up at 4:30 am in order to serve breakfast to the homeless…they were taking a much needed break here]
[eating dinner at Ben’s Chili Bowl]
[hopping up the steps to a fountain where we had debrief]
[folding sheets at a shelter]
[singing in the van…listening to them was one of my favorite parts of the week]
[sorting donated home items that were given away to families in need]
We will miss our Kentucky family! It was hard waving goodbye. We shed a few tears, but we know God has awesome things planned for each one of the students and leaders.
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